Art conventionally can be defined as the expression of one’s emotions and insights through formalist representations that inspire imagination (Adajian 2007; for a full discussion look at Dickie 1969; Rosenberg 1983; D’Azevedo 1958), where the key is the artist’s style, imagination, or inner feelings. Conversely, business is largely associated with commercial activities which concern economic profitability, market share, and wealth accumulation (Porter 2008; also look at Schumpeter 1934), where a lot of weight is put on the consumer (Friedman 2016). Thus, the two seem to have paradoxes in raison d’être that result in conflicting values. For an artist, the unique aesthetic or sociocultural value of his creation might be the prominent aspect of production. Yet, there are industrial aspects to the arts which contribute to the complexity of its production.
For many artists, the continuity of style, philosophy, and values might be prioritized over economic salience of the entrepreneurship. In other words, securing the continuity of their style and values over extended organizational life cycles will be of a greater importance over profitability. However, the industrial side of production is increasingly dominating arts and entertainment through large-scale commercialization and internationalization mechanisms. Famous Chilean filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky, clearly addresses this pressure after failing to find sufficient support from professional investors and turning to people on social media to finance his project:
“…Hollywood films that have colonized the entire world. They have taken over the theaters. They have taken over advertising and distribution. What is left there for someone like me… who thinks cinema is arts? Nothing.” (JodorowskyFilms 2017).
Jodorowsky is not the only filmmaker who is aware of this trend. Cinema indeed seems to be an extreme case where industrial values are broadly salient. David Lynch makes similar comments about his struggle in cinema:
Things changed a lot… So many films were not doing well at the box office even though they might have been great films and the things that were doing well at the box office weren’t the things that I would want to do. (Stolworthy 2017)
Despite institutions that put additional pressures on artistic values of production, however, it is possible to switch between the role of an entrepreneur and an artist, to reconcile the two aspects of production. According to Abbas Kiarostami, a world-class filmmaker whose work has once brought him Palme d’Or, this is another force that has blurred the boundaries between art and business throughout the history of cinema:
I don’t think we sort it out in one definition or in words. I think the real question, which can be frustrating or satisfying is to what extent, cinema, when it was born was meant to be lead where it is now, its present state; that’s what I really wonder. We also need to know where is the border between cinema as an art and cinema as a business. (The Modern School of Film 2016)
In this chapter, the authors will present an overview of different approaches that artists may take in face of institutional pressures that promote industrial values and address how some of them redefine entrepreneurship in doing so. To provide descriptions about such mechanisms, archival resources about Iranian filmmakers are used.
Artist (or) Entrepreneur
Although the concept of entrepreneurship has been primarily developed in business studies, it has a fundamental tie to arts at its core. Considering the classical definitions of entrepreneurship, it has been described as “making a major change in methods of manufacturing, producing new products and creating new industries” (Schumpeter 2003, p. 132). The entrepreneurs also have been introduced as those who have tendency to manage and operate a business unit and handle pertaining risks to make profit (Business Dictionary 2017). Besides these sorts of definitions which are rooted in economic and commercial traditions of entrepreneurship, there are others that consider factors such as values or creating an experience rather than cost and benefit. Particularly, when it comes to the arts, entrepreneurship means findings new artistic concepts, adopting methods of storytelling and using organizational structures as means of expressions to publicize the artistic ideas. In this context, managing environmental pressures and limitations (rather than revenue generation and wealth accumulation) are the main purpose of entrepreneurial activities (Scherdin and Zander 2011, p. 3). There is a notable distinction between adventure capitalists and entrepreneurs, where the former is an (often wealthy) individual finding interest in a project or idea, who “meets with persons who wish to oversee and execute the project, and makes a decision on whether or not to extend funding to the endeavor” (Dass 2009). An art entrepreneur is an individual who assumes ownership over a particular entrepreneurial style, idea, and process in the field of arts. Entrepreneurial activities in many of the arts even require “passion”; a passion that transcends financial considerations (Darmer 2008).
The Institutional Context of the Arts
If not more, the relationship between an artistic production and its institutional environment is not any less critical than the elements of ownership, style, and passion. Institutions are defined as “humanly devised codes of behavior” (North 1990) which might introduce or enforce some “recipes” (Walsh 1995) for the standard production into a field. Indeed, art has been an inspiring subject for some of the greatest institutional scholars such as DiMaggio, or even before him, Pierre Bourdieu who introduced the concept of field (Bourdieu 1969) which is an appropriate level of analysis for the study of institutions and organizations (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Hinings and Greenwood 2002) and has a considerable history in the studies of cultural production—(an organizational field is a set of organizations that “in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life” (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, p. 148).
Accordingly art may be defined as “(1) an artifact (2) a set of the aspects of which has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the art world).” (Dickie 1974; also look at Yanal 1998; Dickie 1969; DiMaggio 1987). The second part of this definition is what can substantially link arts with more recent accounts of entrepreneurship, in which “creating” legitimacy for innovative ideas in a “revitalizing society” stands central to the definition of entrepreneurship (Berglund, Dahlin, and Johansson 2007). Hence, establishing social acceptance or appreciation of (at least) key individuals who represent the support of significant social institutions or streams (i.e., the gatekeepers) is critical. Before discussing the ways of attaining such support, it is worthwhile to further tap into the nuances in the institutional context of artistic production.
Institutional settings and interactions vary across time and space. More precisely, institutions and their interactions among various actors, across markets and field configuring events (such as festivals or reviews in the media) form different production regimes. Each regime signifies a different set of logics, rules, and gatekeepers. Field configuring events are key to the stability or change of balance, policies, and structure of the field (for a full discussion look at Moeran and Pedersen 2011; Mazza and Pedersen 2004). As a result, each regime provides a different reference point for an author to establish the legitimacy of his/her work.
The Case of Iranian Cinema
Cinema is definitely no exception when it comes to variations in production context. In an author cinema where production is regarded as artistic creation/expression to convey “the mark of and refine the author’s personal style,” critics play the central role in provision of sufficient acceptance among other related institutions. Hence, an author (usually the director) who achieves the approval of critics and colleagues will be often able to obtain the necessary resources for production and remain the central decision maker in the production process. In a studio system, however, the individual or corporate producer oversees overall aspects of a production, oftentimes linking separate scriptwriter and directors to each other. Hence, a scriptwriter or director has the challenge of convincing a producer and his resources would be limited to the degree that the project may achieve box office results and foster profitability. Yet, there is another production regime in cinema, perhaps establishing a middle ground between the first two, usually referred to as national cinema. In this regime, cinema is valued as media, providing mass communication on cultural and national issues. Hence, author, scriptwriter, and producer have to interact, often under the guiding policies of an overseeing institution, to not only meet box office standards to an acceptable extent, but also promote dialogue on cultural, social, or political issues of national significance. Therefore, production would be considered legitimate when it sufficiently draws the attention of the target audience and meets the conditions of overseeing protocols and policies (Mathieu and Strandvad 2009).
While one type of these mechanisms might dominate a specific field or even a whole country’s industry (depending on the dominant mode of production in that country), it does not necessitate exclusion of the other types. Iranian cinema is a good example in which the traces of all three streams are present. The structure of the industry is traditionally established around the author system, as is the working style of elder well-known Iranian filmmakers. For example, Masoud Kimiayi clearly elaborates on the central role of an author in response to a journalist who raised the speculation about the editing of his last movie, “The Domestic Murderer”:
“Is such a thing possible that it would have a different cut? ... The movie is mine! [Pause.] The movie, its economy is his [points to the producer], its being is mine.” (CaffeCinema 2017)
Kimiayi’s claim was later backed up in the same conference by a colleague, Fereydoon Jeyrani, who was called and introduced to the audience as “the talking history of Iranian cinema”:
I came here to support Mr. Kimiayi [the director], and to express to Mr. Kimiayi that the author of the film is director, and the director of the film is the author of the film. It is the author or director who can decide, everywhere around the world, about what to do. I do not want to underestimate the role of producer, producer has a fundamental role in formation of the movie… Hence, I came here tonight to definitely tell you that all the friends present in here are backing the director. (CaffeCinema 2017)
Indeed, Jeyrani is not the only person who backs up Kimiayi. Javad Toosi, a well-known Iranian critic and an admirer of Kimiayi’s art, has an exclusive look on this author in his writing (Saemi 2017). Kimiayi’s strong network of like-minded professionals, fans, and numerous actors and actresses who are fond of his artistic style allows Kimiayi to talk even more strictly to the producer in a press conference:
“The film is short or long, or it is this way or that way, we will cut it shorter, is not your level.” (CaffeCinema 2017)
Kimiayi goes even further to indicate that standing beside him is the actual source of legitimacy:
Mr. Ghouchani is respected, his occupation was in advertising, still is, and he knows it very well. With producing this movie, he had a big advertising [campaign] for himself, beside me, taking pictures, news, it just went on until it was near end. (CaffeCinema 2017)
Yet, despite all the credit that Kimiayi holds in Iranian cinema, the producer’s hope and attempt to raise a controversy in a press conference at Fajr Festival1 highlights the significance of field configuring events in the distribution of legitimacy and power within a field.
An old friend and colleague of Kimiayi, Abbas Kiarostami, however, had a quite different approach with the author regime. His movies often casted amateurs and had a small crew. With his well-known minimalist, documentary-like style, along with early adoption of digital cinematography in Iran, he was not in need of large budgets. Hence, he could remain the main process owner in all aspects of production. Moreover, he diversified his market overseas and always tried to take advantage of international festivals:
Festivals have had a subconscious effect on me; it is a positive thing to be acclaimed and approved which makes you self confident and brave for experiencing new things; something that is rare in Iran and most of the time when a movie varies in accepted norms and scales from other products, it would face the critics’ parochialism and lacking of knowledge. These critics are sometimes so influential that could affect public and even movie producers’ opinion. Outside of Iran, film reviewers have been more accurate and make the filmmakers more self confident; however, I should mention that I have never attempted to change my methods of filmmaking according to the attitudes of foreigner critics. Actually, due to the fact that the form of my artwork is determined by the subject and its content, I am not able to change my style of work in the way that the western reviewers or festivals prefer... (Hashemi 2016).
As mentioned before, however, author regime is not the only system of filmmaking in Iran. As a recent graduate of Soureh University, Saeed Roostai started his feature-film career with a script for which he kept contacting producers to the point of frustration. When finally a producer offered support, however, his first film acquired almost all of the awards at Fajr Festival and brought him the admiration of many critics as well as a remarkable box office performance (Azarpanah 2016). Yet, in his next attempt, he has worked with a different producer and taken only the role of scriptwriter. Due to his talent in meeting the expectations of audience as well as critics, he is trying to take advantage of working in different roles with different producers in a similar setting to the studio system.
Soureh University also hosts one of the most controversial Iranian critics, Masoud Farasati, as an instructor. Farasati has made strict comments about the works of all the aforementioned filmmakers. He is also the official analyst of the most successful TV show on Iranian cinema, Seven. During the 2016 Fajr Festival, Farasati and Seven, along with a number of other dissatisfied parties took position against the nomination procedures of the festival. The resonance of this conflict in the TV show divided film professionals in opposing groups and raised a lot of controversy. At the closing ceremony, Vahid Jalilvand clearly addressed and condemned the role of national TV during his talk about receiving the best director award:
National media, Seven, Afkhami, Farasati (the host of the show), you tried all you could to make us [who work in cinema] sulky to each other, but …I hugged [Mohammad Hossein] Mahdavian… You tried to create differences among us, but we like each other, all of us, all of us like each other. Thank you. (CaffeCinema 2017)
Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian was active among the objecting group and with media coverage from Seven and newspapers; he and Jalilvand were emerging as icons of the two opposing groups. Though in their movies, both are using themes that may fit into national cinema, Mahdavian’s work which was about political tensions of 80s in Iran, similar to his previous movie which was about Iraq war, was more explicitly supported by official national media such as the Seven show (Seven 2017).
Mahdavian works in teams with writers and producers to raise important sociopolitical conversations, especially in order to convey certain revolutionary values to the younger generation, in coordination with authorities and policy makers (both directly through the connections of producers and indirectly through the support of national media). Therefore, with a desirable performance in the national box office, his work can be considered an effective example of national cinema. This approach enables Mahdavian to stay at the center of attention, be influential on the trends of field configuring events, and accordingly access valuable resources for production. For instance, despite the controversy surrounding his movie in the 2016 Fajr Festival, it was awarded the best film. As the administration of the festival remained under question, the head of Cinema Organization was dismissed, while those involved in the Seven show expressed satisfaction regarding their influence:
The audience of Seven, with a very large number, defended its approach, that what you did was bringing in a conversation, for the first time, a TV show managed [to do so]. It is five years that I am [working in] Seven... We were never, in the context of the festival, as successful. That is we have been able to promote both film reviews… as well as discussions among the audience. We should indicate this, if not, then it might seem that our [opposing] friends were so successful in destroying [our] work. Not at all. (Seven 2017)
Conclusion
The complexities of art entrepreneurship were addressed by portraying the conflicting values and conceptual similarities of art and entrepreneurship. Accordingly, institutional accounts of art and entrepreneurship were discussed to connect the two concepts. The role of gatekeepers, field configuring events, and other sources of legitimacy in each production regime was explained. In order to succeed, art entrepreneurs have to find and understand at least one production regime, within which they can plan to attain necessary resources and the support of gatekeeper(s). Festivals might serve as a useful resource in this regard. Moreover, while in institutional scholarship, institutional logics and pressures might be considered omnipresent in a nation’s given industry, it was shown how variations of those configurations might coexist within the same space. Future research might address the details of such coexistence.
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1 The largest national film festival.